Dumped on Valentines day by wheelchair bound boyfriend, HELP!

[Vaimahina]

I * know this will be long, but please bear with me! I had been in a 7 month relationship with someone who has been wheelchair-bound for the past 6 years. He broke up with me about a month into the relationship because he felt it was unfair for me, but I managed to convince him to stay with me and he admitted he felt he loved me. * He was never very loving with me unless he's had a couple of drinks, but I think I fell for him from the very beginning because I felt we were so compatible, we were never bored in conversation, shared so many things in common (we'd actually met 10 years ago as my best friend was also his sister's best friend). He's very smart and witty and good-loking and he speaks both English and Spanish perfectly, which I do as well--something that was really important to me because I need to express myself in both.

 

In any case, there were times when I doubted if he really cared for me--he told me twice that he had decided to not love anyone ever again after his first heartbreak at 15, but after one night when he poured his love out to me I believed him and assumed that he just wasn't normally very expressive or affectionate. It must be said that in retrospect he seemed unhappy with his job and he kind of saw me as a way out of the things that were making him unhappy--so not really sure if he really loved me although he says he did. * Before the break-up I always felt he was very honest and straightforward with me and took everything he said at face value--I never read more into anything he told me.

 

Well, I was away all of January because of work and I returned on February 13th just so I could spend Valentines day with him. I wrote him two loving postcards during this time, but it was hard to call him as I was working on a ship--although I did call him whenever I could, neither of us are very good at talking on the phone so we were both pretty curt on those conversations. Right before coming back I actually expressed being upset at the fact that he had almost hung up on me because he was preoccupied with online poker when I called (I've never made an issue over his poker-playing, ever, on the contrary I've encouraged the things he loves even though his family doesn't approve of his spending so much time playing poker). I also know he loves to watch a lot of online porn and I've never made an issue out of that either since I think it makes him feel good and again, whatever makes him happy makes me happy.

 

Anyway, I was always very flexible, being very new at the whole thing, I wanted to give him all the space he needed and I'm the kind of person that believes that when you love someone you love them exactly the way they are--if you feel compelled to change anything, better keep looking. Well, I wrote him an email after he almost hung up on me and he misunderstood something I wrote as saying he wasn't much when I meant that I felt he'd been feeding me breadcrumbs. I corrected him the next day and to let him know that I thought the world of him whether we were together or not and that I loved him.

 

To make a long story short, I met up with him on Valentine's Day with many presents (I had told him not to get me anything as I knew it'd be complicated for him to go shopping). He asked me lots of questions as, later I realized, testing me. He told me he'd been playing lots of poker and was thinking on becoming a professional poker player (I told him that he should try and do whatever makes him happy). He told me he'd have to move elsewhere and I said he could move in with me although I didn't think he wanted to. He asked me what my plans were and I told him about some of my work projects. * Then I invited him to go away on a trip with me since he'd mentioned that he wanted a vacation the last time we had talked (I'd pay--I'd done this before in November for a vacation with some friends of his). At this, he told me we weren't on the same page, that he couldn't pretend anymore and that there was no chemistry, that he was hoping that when he'd see me he'd think, "this is the girl," but no, it didn't happen. I asked him if he was sure, and he said yes, that he'd actually felt this way in December, but saw me so stressed out about my upcoming job that he's decided to wait (I had gotten no sense of this in Dec, through his birthday, X-mas together at my sister's house with his dad, and New Year's with his friends. *

 

However I was pretty stressed in December regarding my upcoming job and the fact that my mom stayed with me a month and a half and although I love her dearly we don't get along at all. I cried one weekend and he told me this wasn't attractive and I asked him for a hug, which he complied and told me everything would be the same when I got back, that I'd only be gone a month and a half and that made me feel much better). I took the break-up ok, having gone through a horrible break-up less than a year ago. I thanked him for his honesty. I did tell him we could go more casual, but with my letters there on his desk, he said that we couldn't go back to that and how would I feel if I saw him flirting with another woman. I told him I'd seen him flirting with anther woman already, as early on when we'd agreed to keep it casual and I'd seen him flirting with a girl that had started flirting with him after all of us had had way too many drinks. He said "yeah, and you didn't like it" (at first I'd been cool with it, but a few days later I'd felt bad and told him that he could do whatever he wanted, but that I didn't want to know about it--he'd responded by saying he'd been an ass and that we had a great thing going and shouldn't let that get in the way, that we should rise above it). I told him about another woman I thought he'd liked and maybe I just made myself seem like the jealous type which wasn't what I wanted at all, so I stopped. *

 

My one real mistake when he broke up with me I think is that because I felt he was doing this out of fear of commitment and because I thought he felt I loved him too much, I played down my feelings for him and told him that although he'd heard from friends that I was staying in town because of him I had told them that because it sounded better than not knowing what I wanted out of life, and this is the bad one, admitted that I'd accepted a foot massage from someone a few weeks ago, but had felt really guilty over it and then laughed about my dirty feet trying to lighten up the mood (yeah, I know I shouldn't have accepted, but it seemed perfectly innocent at the time). Now I'm thinking maybe he was still testing me... it was weird because while I seemed to be saying things I didn't want to be saying (getting drawn into a stupid game) I also was really honest with him and admitted that he had never made me feel like a girlfriend (because he was so cold, although this part I did not say and he may have misinterpreted the reason why). He seemed surprised by this, as well as by my not making a big deal out of the break-up, crying etc.

 

We hung out for the rest of the evening as friends, joked about being like Elaine and Jerry Seinfeld. He asked himself aloud why this was so hard and that he'd never try this again (going out with someone) and I told him to not be silly. We drunk our beers and wine and watched funny videos on youtube and when the time came he called a taxi for me and I was gone. * I guess I should add that most people find me very attractive so this chemistry thing has me very down--as in I can't attract the one guy I want to attract. I'm a nice person, maybe too nice, and I'm smart as in SAT smart--I admit I'm not so smart emotionally as I seem to get myself in bad relationships one after the other. Also, children and marriage are not an issue for me at all and even though sex with him was different he was great. Now that we've broken up I keep trying to read more into what he told me, that maybe he was pushing me away out of fear of getting hurt, after interpreting my message the wrong way or maybe he's just a cold fish (that night he said he and his sister who just left her husband were not meant to have partners, poison heart, etc. Although I told him once "you have a heart in there, you just don't want others to see it, " and he smiled and said "yeah." If decided to respect his decision and believe him. I told him that I'd lay low for a while until this all settles so we can have a chance at being friends, and that its high time I loved me. I feel like I finished closing the door, that my asking him for a little more opened, and its the most painful thing to have to agree to this break-up when I feel like I still love him and that it'll be impossible to find someone who can live up to all the things I liked about him, but I feel he made the right decision of not for himself, for me.

 

My love for him was based on something very true and real for me, very far from superficial, and I'm more devastated with this break-up than I am about the last person who broke up a 6-yr relationship with me after cheating on me with one of his students. The NC thing is REALLY hard, but I'll do it for me. Boo hoo, I'd really fallen in love this time, like I hadn't done in many, many years. I felt like I could spend the rest of my life with him, just living in our separate houses and loving each other when we wanted to, I was cool with that I really was, but I would have had to get a little love sometimes... and I didn't feel like I was getting even that. I wish he'd given me the least bit of a chance after the trip, but he just shut me out. Couldn't he have just loved me! He said his friends and family would all be mad at him for breaking up with me and I said you can't be in it for them and you can't make someone love you. That's the truth. This is so hard! In any case I'm writing to vent, and to get some feedback from people that may have some insight on this kind of situation. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

[jumper11]

Hey hun, just trying to help - click edit and just press enter a few times to break up your post so we can read it and help you out.

[DN]

Moderator Note: Mahinavai, I have broken your post into paragraphs as a great wall of text is very hard to read and few people will bother. In future, please make sure you do this yourself.

[WhenWillILove]

It's really hard to tell with these things.

On one hand, he could be putting up a wall of defense. Do you think his disability is preventing him from enjoying your relationship together? That could play a big role in this. Perhaps he says you're unattractive and that he's lost attraction for you because deep down, he thinks you'll lose the attraction for him, especially since he is wheel chair bound. It is tough living life wheel-chair bound and I'm sure there are insecurities regarding that.

When people put up 'walls', it's not necessarily because they don't like you; it could be because they are afraid of love and vulnerability of losing this great love. Hope this helps.

[RedDress]

I dunno... what do you see in this guy? He sounds like a jerk. You are making all sorts of concessions for him... paying for his vacations... buying his presents and expecting nothing in return... agreeing to have separate homes and lives... and for what? He doesn't even treat you very nice.

 

Having a disability does not entitle you to be a jerk.

[Batya33]

It's interesting how you refer to him as "wheelchair bound boyfriend" -isn't he a person first, then your boyfriend and then one situation he is in is that he uses a wheelchair? It's possible that your focus on his disability first and foremost impacted negatively the way you two related to each other. My husband doesn't refer to me as his "myopic wife".

[Vaimahina]

Believe me I couldn't care less about the wheelchair--I only put it in the title because I do think that it affects our relationship not because of me but because of the way he feels and thinks about it. I grew up in a home with two people in wheelchairs, my brother lost a leg a little over a year ago--believe me, disabilities are no obstacle for me. He has always been the person first for me. (and thank you for splitting it up into sections for me!). Half of me thinks his disability is getting in the way of his trusting himself to love me, the other half thinks he's a the "grass is greener on the other side" kind of guy and will never let himself get close enough to anybody. Either way, I'm bound to be hurt, I wish I wasn't hoping so much for a turnaround miracle! Right now I just feel like crying.

[Batya33]

If he defines himself as "a wheelchair bound person" as you define him in the title then yes I could see that as his personal obstacle to having healthy relationships -romantic or platonic.

[Vaimahina]

I don't know, maybe I'm just looking for excuses, maybe he's just a guy who just doesn't want to be in a relationship with anyone and that's it (wheelchair or no wheelchair--although it did seem to be an issue for him at times). I don't really want to get married, have a family, or children, this is not something I came up with when I met him; I've felt this way all along, which is not to say I don't want to love someone as much as anyone else. I would just be happy knowing that I am loved by the person I love (and it doesn't necessarily imply living together) and yes, I'm capable of loving deeply, but he wasn't emotionally there for me in the least and that it not a wheelchair thing but a guy who doesn't want any commitment thing--that is the root of the problem. I also feel its very hard to explain how I got to like him so much just because I've never felt such a strong connection with anybody. I don't feel like dating anyone at all now, just learning from my mistakes and coming out a better person.